NEVADA INVENTORS ASSOCIATION

FAQ

"Education, Assistance, and

Networking for the Inventor"

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Dear Petrillo,
Through years of investigation and listening to the sad stories of hundreds of inventors it is my observation that regardless of what name they use, they all operate the same. For a multi-million dollar a year operation, their major and most important expense is advertising. For every ten dollars that goes into advertising, I would estimate that one cent goes into the actual development and promotion of the idea. As a result you see them everywhere. They are in the back of most every magazine, newspaper, Network TV, Cable TV, Radio and every other media that is greedy enough to take their money.

The theme, or first hook, is "send for your Free inventor's kit, information, submission forms, protection forms or whatever vehicle is popular at the time." For those naive inventors who are unfortunate enough to send for their Free kit, the phone calls will start and most often will not stop till the inventors submits the idea for a Free evaluation, product overview, assessment, or whatever they are calling their bogus report at the time. This is the second hook and is the end of the Free.

Unless your idea is illegibly written and in crayon, there is a 99.9% chance your idea will be accepted for further development. Now enter the commissioned sales force calling themselves Marketing Directors, assistants to the President, product analyst, marketing staff or whatever they are calling themselves at the time and the third hook. Like the owners, these people were not selected for their intelligence or hired to think, which most probably can't, without some sort of coaching. They were hired to present themselves as something they are not by following a well-rehearsed script. When this group presents itself as an expert in anything, it constitutes fraud.

They now want to do some further research for you, but it is going to cost you this time. The salesperson will first get the inventor to sign some innocent looking disclaimer forms. Forms that most every inventor claims they have no idea what the forms said. Some operations are required by law to do so, others, that have started under new names, are not required. If the inventor ever read and understood the disclaimers, they would never do business with them. That is why the salesperson is there to guide them through the process and explain the processes in their own words. Lets face it, would anyone pay hundreds of dollars for a report that is not an evaluation, from a firm that has a .15% (I personally think this is an extremely inflated figure) success rate. I say, without lying, no. I have had hundreds of inventors tell me that the salespeople said something entirely different than what was written.

Now we move onto "The Report" and the fourth hook. If you are an inventor that is reading this and have just arrived at this stage with an invention promoter, don't give them the hundreds of dollars they want. I will provide you the results Free of charge. "Your idea appears to be both patentable and marketable," end of report. Sadly, most are neither. What has happened is the unsuspecting inventor has paid for his or hers own sales presentation. The report is not an evaluation of any sorts. It is a valueless gathering of meaningless information that looks convincing to the uninformed. The patent search is most often as worthless as the reputed report. The patent search stands a high probability of being completed by what we refer to as "The Florida Connection." These are the folks that feel everything is patentable. Many of the insidious use their services. In earlier years, these same people would provide two opinions on one idea. One most often said it was unpatentable and the other always said it was patentable. The company got to choose which one to show to the inventor. Can you guess which one they showed? Behind the scenes they remain the same people. They have, however, occasionally used a different Patent Attorney for the front man.

Now the salesforce turns up the pressure. They want you, the unsuspecting inventor, to pay them, the unsuccessful promoters, thousands of dollars to supposedly promote your idea. How do they do it, they lie and mislead. You don't have any money and you don't want to take a second mortgage out on the house and you don't want to borrow from family and friends, no problem. They now have their own finance company. They can even get interest from you now. And when you discover you have been taken and cancel your monthly payment, they can give you a bad credit rating.

Once you pay, what do you get? If you are lucky, a worthless Patent, most likely a Design Patent, or if you are even luckier a Utility Patent with claims that are so narrow, it is also worthless. Something to frame, hang on the wall and forget. Disappointment because your idea never had a snowball's chance of making it to the marketplace. A few brochures that were mailed to a random list of manufacturers that were never opened. A Free hometown news release that does absolutely nothing but show they may have actually taken the time to do something for your $10,000. They spent a few dollars, probably not more than $5, for postage. For two years they successfully sidestepped your questions. Most importantly, you now have a meaningless report that looks attractive if you frame it and hang in on the wall. However, with the money you spent, you may have been able to get a painting by the "Masters" to hang on the wall. Want to view paintings by the real "Masters?" Visit the opulent mansions of the "Invention Pimps" that just ripped you off.

Did they develop your idea? The only thing these companies develop,
is your money into their money.
Bob Lougher of UIA/USA

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